Economist, Last Mile Economic Science

Amazon • Bellevue, WA

1d

About The Position

We are looking for an Economist at the frontier of applied microeconomics to join the Last Mile Economic Science team. They will develop rigorous but interpretable models to assess, design, and implement program and policy changes across all the Last Mile programs. The team supports Amazon Flex, the Delivery Service Partner program, and the Hub Delivery Partner program. An Economist in this role will build tools to model the internal and external drivers of the engagement, effectiveness, and sentiment of our transporters. These tools will enable Amazon to innovate ways to incentivize our transporters to deliver for our customers in the short, medium and long term. Key job responsibilities The ideal candidate will have extensive knowledge of both the theory and practice of econometrics, strong collaboration skills, and a proven ability to independently execute on ambiguous economics problems and deliver high-quality results. They will work closely with and influence a broad set of stakeholders across Last Mile. They will partner closely with Economists, Applied Scientists, Research Scientists, and software engineers to integrate their forecasts and estimates into a larger ecosystem of predictive and optimizing models; with Product leaders to help define analytic product use cases, requirements, and success criteria; with Operations and Financial leaders to drive adoption of these tools in both day-to-day operational settings as well as in financial forecasting exercises; and with Leadership to share insights, learnings, and recommendations for taking opportunities and mitigating risk. This position is well suited for economists adept at combining rigorous causal inference within a larger modeling ecosystem that includes both structural microeconomic modeling and time series forecasting. It could be a good fit for candidates with research or industry experience in policy evaluation, labor microeconometrics, empirical finance, empirical industrial organization, and panel data methods. A day in the life Economists in Last Mile work in a fast moving environment to solve business problems as a member of a cross-functional team embedded within a business unit. You will be expected to develop techniques that apply econometrics to large data sets, address quantitative problems, and contribute to the design of automated systems throughout Last Mile. You will collaborate closely with product owners and data engineers but will be expected to work independently to deliver on your analyses, recommendations, and algorithmic contributions. You will present your work in business reviews with senior leadership and influence their high-judgment decisions that impact transporters worldwide. About the team The Last Mile Economic Science team builds forecasting, optimization, and incentive design tools to help connect supply and demand for delivery capacity across Last Mile, delighting millions of customers worldwide. Our forecasts, experimental design, causal inference, dynamic optimization, and mechanism/information design provide timely and effective incentives that shape pools of capacity across Amazon Flex, the Delivery Service Partner program, and our Hub Delivery Partner programs to meet growing demand for high-quality deliveries.

Requirements

• PhD in economics or equivalent
• Knowledge of data analysis languages (e.g., R, Stata, Python, etc.) or other statistical software
• Experience in a postdoctoral position, consulting position, government position or academic research
• Experience with SQL

Responsibilities

• develop rigorous but interpretable models to assess, design, and implement program and policy changes across all the Last Mile programs
• build tools to model the internal and external drivers of the engagement, effectiveness, and sentiment of our transporters
• innovate ways to incentivize our transporters to deliver for our customers in the short, medium and long term
• work closely with and influence a broad set of stakeholders across Last Mile
• partner closely with Economists, Applied Scientists, Research Scientists, and software engineers to integrate their forecasts and estimates into a larger ecosystem of predictive and optimizing models
• partner with Product leaders to help define analytic product use cases, requirements, and success criteria
• partner with Operations and Financial leaders to drive adoption of these tools in both day-to-day operational settings as well as in financial forecasting exercises
• partner with Leadership to share insights, learnings, and recommendations for taking opportunities and mitigating risk
• develop techniques that apply econometrics to large data sets
• address quantitative problems
• contribute to the design of automated systems throughout Last Mile
• collaborate closely with product owners and data engineers
• work independently to deliver on your analyses, recommendations, and algorithmic contributions
• present your work in business reviews with senior leadership and influence their high-judgment decisions that impact transporters worldwide

Benefits

• health insurance (medical, dental, vision, prescription, Basic Life & AD&D insurance and option for Supplemental life plans, EAP, Mental Health Support, Medical Advice Line, Flexible Spending Accounts, Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement coverage)
• 401(k) matching
• paid time off
• parental leave

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level
• Education Level: Ph.D. or professional degree